Upon returning to his dwelling, Lin Xian took out a bottle of disinfectant mixed with bleach from behind the door and carefully sprayed it around the entrance and the corridor. Only after doing all that did he enter the room, shut the security door, and secured the iron chain.
Lin Xian's first action was to take out his phone and open the map to search for Chen Sixuan's location.
Rule number one of the apocalypse: Be wary of the night.
Rule number two of the apocalypse: Never act rashly.
Lin Xian doesn't fight unprepared battles. Jiang City has now completely fallen, and those who remain are either survivors hiding in shelters or thugs looting the streets, along with hordes of Zombies.
And entering the night is even more terrifying, as people still do not know what eerie beings exist in the darkness.
Based on the accounts of survivors on various radio frequencies, these beings are indescribable and undefinable; very few people survive an encounter with them.
"7.2 kilometers, not exactly close…"
Had it been before the apocalypse, such a distance would only take about ten minutes by taxi, but now, with transportation paralyzed and roads and bridges damaged, Lin Xian estimated that even riding a motorcycle would take him half an hour.
Moreover, the situation on the other side was unclear. It could be said that in the apocalypse, daring to rescue someone like this, apart from one's own mother, hardly anyone else would be worth it.
Lin Xian's gaze flickered as he sighed internally.
Teacher Chen, I hope you're worth taking this risk for.
18:45, night gradually approached.
Lin Xian pulled down the iron shutters on the windows and began to prepare dinner.
He hadn't gone searching for supplies today; those who fled Jiang City and other survivors had already ransacked the supermarkets and convenience stores countless times, making it difficult to even find a packet of ketchup.
Fortunately, when he searched for things, in addition to food and drink, various mechanical items that other survivors never cared about were also his prey.
02:42
A faint sound woke Lin Xian from his light sleep. He got up and steadied himself, fixing his gaze on the door amidst the darkness.
The sound seemed to come from outside in the hallway.
So, he picked up the Short Knife used for self-defense and silently moved behind the door.
This door had been reinforced with steel plates several times, much sturdier than the average security door. However, Lin Xian wasn't completely confident it could keep those things out. Being in a high-rise, his only escape route was the staircase in the corridor.
Lin Xian peered through the peephole, only to see the corridor engulfed in darkness, with only the pale green light from the emergency lamp allowing him to see the outlines of some walls and floor.
After observing for a while and seeing nothing, he turned around to go back to sleep.
But he had only taken two steps when a bizarre knocking sound suddenly came from the iron door!
Thud~ Thud!
Two spaced-out knocks immediately made Lin Xian's scalp tingle!
Was it really a person? Or had those things discovered his hiding place?
His expression turned solemn as he turned back to the door, hesitated for a moment with a tight grip on the Short Knife in his hand, and held his breath to peer through the peephole once again.
Hiss!
The sight through the peephole made Lin Xian gasp in shock!
In the dim green light of the corridor, an old man dressed in a black shroud had appeared out of nowhere, standing motionless in front of his door. His face was gaunt and pale, his eyes bordering on rot... a dead, ashen gray, emitting a terrifying aura.
What was most horrifying was that the corpse-like old man seemed to be looking right at him through the peephole!
Lin Xian immediately staggered backwards in fright, reflexively retreating two steps, his face filled with unbelievable shock.
Is that not Uncle Li from downstairs?
But he's already dead...
Lin Xian stepped back with a grave look, not needing to think twice to know that the thing outside looking like 'Uncle Li' was definitely no longer human.
A zombie?
But how would a zombie knock on doors?
Lin Xian's expression grew uglier, and if it was some freak of the night, then he was in for a rough time tonight.
"Uncle Li, instead of comfortably lying in your coffin, why the hell have you come back to suffer..." cursed Lin Xian in his heart.
Time slowly ticked away as Lin Xian, completely devoid of sleepiness, tightly gripped the Short Knife while standing against the wall behind the door.
The knocking sound had not resumed.
But something even more eerie occurred - the wall Lin Xian leaned against began emitting a faint sound of nails scraping against it. The sound wasn't loud, but it was enough to make one's scalp tingle as if something was scratching incessantly just beyond the wall...
"F*ck!" He stepped back abruptly, staring at the wall in front of him, "This thing isn't trying to burrow in, is it?"
Lin Xian was somewhat dazed.
It seemed the thing outside could sense his presence, only a wall away.
In this situation, Lin Xian's best option was to remain breathlessly quiet and not make any sound. As long as the door to the room wasn't broken down, he was temporarily safe.
But at the same time, he had already prepared an escape route. Most of the supplies had been moved onto the Infinity; he had only a few days' worth of food and water left in the room, along with that generator and batteries.
As time passed by the second, the bizarre scratching noise, like a demon in his mind, kept haunting Lin Xian's ears.
After a while, the noise finally ceased, and Lin Xian let out a breath of relief, standing up to peer through the peephole once more.
This time, however, the scene before him made every hair on his body stand on end.
At some point, a girl had appeared in the hallway outside the door, lying on the ground covered in blood, struggling to rise and reaching toward the direction of the door while weakly crying out,
"Save me... please save me..."
Lin Xian's eyes narrowed slightly. The girl looked no more than fifteen or sixteen years old, her attire completely out of place in this apocalyptic world. She wore ultra-short shorts with a low-cut top, a bright-colored baseball jacket over it, and a wireless earpiece around her neck, looking youthful and stylish. If not for the blood smeared across her face, Lin Xian might have thought this was not the apocalypse, but the girl-next-door visiting late at night.
Facing the girl's plea for help, Lin Xian remained silent behind the door.
He had just clearly seen a dead body standing eerily outside, and now it had suddenly become a little lolita, which was incredibly abnormal to anyone.
The things in this dark night were unpredictable, and besides, he had no relationship with the girl. Wouldn't opening the door now be harming himself?
As time slowly approached 5 a.m., it was at least another 9 hours until daylight.
Through the peephole, Lin Xian saw that the girl had now turned pale and had collapsed on the ground, unconscious.
"Damn it, is this some monster setting a trap to trick me into opening the door?" Lin Xian felt a headache coming on, finding the situation eerier than any Zombie.
Unable to resist his curiosity, he took another look.
This time, he was shocked to discover the figure of 'Uncle Li' suddenly standing beside the little lolita, head lowered, seemingly sniffing her.
Then 'Uncle Li' shuffled his feet stiffly, stepping in front of the little girl before slowly bending down.
At that moment, Lin Xian's pupils constricted as he saw something clinging to Uncle Li's back - a bizarre, worm-like creature with many thin legs like those of a black centipede, almost covering his entire back!
What the hell kind of creature was this?!
Lin Xian inhaled sharply.
The creature's legs moved slowly. It caused Uncle Li's hands to lift and then suddenly lunged toward the little girl.